No new jail in Penobscot County

To the Editor;

Penobscot County Commissioners want to spend tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money for a new and bigger jail. They’ve already found potential new locations without involving Penobscot County’s taxpaying voters.

I don’t believe Penobscot County needs a new jail. It needs community initiatives to support dignity and second chances for vulnerable Mainers. We use arrest and punishment to address problems of housing and mental health and job or food insecurity. Both Maine and national statistics show that our criminal legal system applies enforcement unequally, criminalizing poverty, people of color, women, mental illness and immigrants.

Maine’s lack of adequate indigent legal support is unconstitutional. The majority of folks in jail are there for months waiting for court adjudication.

Families sometimes view jail and prison as a safer place than the street for their troubled loved ones, but they’re generally not designed to be therapeutic facilities, or the place we provide enough social supports. Corrections systems are not adequately staffed or educated to provide therapy, and harms and even unexplained deaths in custody occur.

Fore more information and to help us speak out, see the websites for No Jail Expansion and Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition. 

Let’s tell our local, county and Maine officials these facilities cannot be hospitals or places of renewal, and that we need community and legislative support for second chances (such as parole, clemency, community reentry, transparency and more).

Janet Drew

York